That Changetip article was written by a fucking moron, aka Emin […] This really makes all other arguments by this douchenozzle impossible to take seriously.
Cherry picking a few sentences that you want to quibble with in no way negatives the validity of the argument about why tipping doesn’t work on the Internet. He also links off to some research and writing on the issue by others. The issue is basically cognitive load and economies-of-scale. Something like Patreon makes more sense because people can commit to an automated monthly stipend for the work someone appreciates.
I do have one criticism of their theory which users also don’t want to have to manage dozens or 100s of different subscriptions.
So tipping doesn’t work, subscriptions don’t scale, and Steem’s “proof-of-brain” voting is a game theory clusterfuck, so thus I devised a different paradigm to be announced soon.